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Integrated SequencePhysics Chemistry Organic Biology
Heat and Temperature
Zeroth Law
Temperature scales
Thermal Expansion
Heat capacity
Transmission of heat

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Special points of emphasis

Work, Energy, and Power

Momentum and Impulse

Heat and Temperature

The Ideal Gas and Kinetic Theory

Heat flow can occur by conduction, convection or radiation. For conduction it is important to understand that heat flow is occurring through collisions at the molecular level. When a fast molecule collides with a slow molecule, the fast molecule will transfer some of its energy to the slow molecule. (In real life, some electromagnetic radiation would be given off in the collision of two particles, but this is typically negligible. In kinetic theory, we assume that the collisions are elastic.) With enormous numbers of particles colliding with one another, an area of high energy will diffuse through the material, making other areas warm too. Heat conduction occurs.



Heat and Temperature

Thermochemistry

Chemical Kinetics

The Properties of Light

Molecular Spectroscopy

Radiation is one of the three ways that a body can exchange heat with its surroundings. Radiation occurs due to the acceleration of charges at the atomic and molecular level. In the thermodynamics discussion of radiation in college physics, radiation is presented in a very generic way, but there are a number of specific ways that a real sample of matter can emit or absorb electromagnetic radiation.

The analysis of many substances is facilitated by examining the radiation they emit or absorbed. IR, untraviolet and NMR spectroscopy, for example, each depend upon a specific resonant mode of the absorbance of electromagnetic radiation.

IR spectroscopy measures the infrared light absorbances resonant with the vibrational modes of atoms in chemical bonds. In fact, the ease with which infrared radiation finds resonance with the vibrational modes of chemically bonded atoms is why infrared is associated with 'heat'. Ultraviolet spectroscopy measures absorbances corresponding to the differences in energies within certain conjugated systems of chemical bonds. NMR measures absorbances of radio waves that correspond to the precessional frequencies of nuclei within an external magnetic field.







The WikiPremed MCAT Course is a free comprehensive course in the undergraduate level general sciences. Undergraduate level physics, chemistry, organic chemistry and biology are presented by this course as a unified whole within a spiraling curriculum.

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